Part 10 (2/2)
That was not, however Wombwell declared, the occasion on which his life had been in greatest peril. Years afterwards, he and Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of the members of the York and Anisty Hunt were crossing the Ouse in a ferryboat, when some of the horses were seized with panic, and the boat was upset. Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of others--twelve, I believe, in all--were drowned, Wombwell being one of the few who escaped. This he regarded as a much more dangerous adventure than the charge of the Light Brigade. Someone at the dinner-table told a story about this tragedy which Wombwell, I thought, hardly liked. The ferry-boat was upset in the river adjoining Sir Charles Slingsby's estate. One of his tenants who had heard of the disaster, and had been told that only one of the baronets had escaped, was hurrying to the scene of the catastrophe, when he met Sir George Wombwell riding home. As soon as the man saw Sir George he flung up his hands, and in accents of dismay cried, ”Eh! but they've drowned t'wrang baronet!”
On the morning after this dinner, Mr. Husband visited me and inspected my knee. I told him that I meant to stay in bed during the day, but hoped he would allow me to keep an engagement I had made to dine at the Cavalry Barracks in the evening. Eyeing me with great severity, the good surgeon said: ”You are a man of intelligence, or at least you ought to be, considering the position you hold. You must surely know that you have met with an injury that will keep you in bed for weeks, at least.” And he hinted, not obscurely, that still worse things than prolonged confinement to bed would certainly befall me if I did not take the greatest care of my injured leg. So there ended all my hopes of a pleasant holiday. The next day I was taken back to Leeds in a state of absolute helplessness, and, being got to bed in my own house, had to remain there for nine mortal weeks.
Some of the experiences of that time were curious. Phlebitis had set in, and for a time I was in serious danger from the formation of a clot of blood in one of the arteries. As is pretty generally known, whilst this state of things exists death may occur at any moment from the stoppage of the heart through the clot getting free and pa.s.sing into the central organ. It was curious to lie in this condition for several days, never knowing at night whether I should see the sun rise again. But I was very much struck by the fact that I became easily reconciled to my state, and did not feel the slightest apprehension with regard to the course of the disease. I was almost free from pain, and was able to carry on my work as regularly as if I had been in attendance at the _Mercury_ office.
Every evening I dictated my leading article to a shorthand writer. A telephone--at that time a great novelty--was put up by the side of my bed and connected with my room at the _Mercury_ office, and by this means I was kept in constant communication with the members of my staff.
Thus my time pa.s.sed pleasantly enough. When I was not dictating I was reading, and during my confinement I re-read the whole of the Waverley novels. It was when I was once more enjoying the romantic adventures of ”Ivanhoe” that I was seized, one afternoon, with the premonitory symptoms which my doctors had told me would indicate the approach of death. At my urgent request they had enlightened me upon this point, and I had learned that death from the accidental stoppage of the heart would be without pain, and would simply be preceded by a feeling of faintness. It was a feeling of this kind which suddenly stole over me as I was reading ”Ivanhoe.” I felt it deepening, and laid aside my book under the firm conviction that I would never again read printed page. Asking for some stimulant, I was given some brandy and water, but it seemed to have no effect in checking the ever-increasing faintness. So I closed my eyes in the drowsy belief that I should never open them again in this world. I felt no pain, no agitation, no fear. Half an hour later I awoke from a placid sleep, and, to my great surprise, found that I was decidedly better than I had been for some time. This seemed, indeed, to have been the crisis of my illness, and from that point I slowly recovered. My doctors conjectured that a minute clot of blood had really pa.s.sed through my heart, producing the faintness from which I had suffered, but not causing death.
I have dwelt at unconscionable length upon this incident of my accidental injury and subsequent illness, but I have done so for the very reason that, sooner or later, experiences of this kind come to most of us, and it may be of some use to state exactly, not only the wonderful rapidity with which a man by the simplest misadventure may imperil his life, but the sensations with which he greets the apparent approach of death. All who have suffered from severe illness must know how readily the invalid accustoms himself to seclusion from the world, and how quickly the panorama of pa.s.sing life seems to fade into insignificance. The outside world becomes, at such a time, a mere pa.s.sing show which has but a secondary interest for the man who can take no part in it. As for the approach of death, I believe, from my own experience, that there is nothing to which a sick man more easily reconciles himself. Certainly, since those days in 1880 I have lost any fear I may have had before of that inevitable end which awaits us all. It is the recovery from a severe illness of accidental injury that is the really trying thing. For many weeks after I left my bed I was a cripple, compelled to use crutches in moving about, and suffering from extreme weakness. I went to Bridlington, a watering-place on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast, to recruit, and, hiring a small trawling boat, I spent every day upon the sea, beating up and down the fine bay trawling for fish. In this way I got plenty of fresh air without bodily fatigue, whilst I had the enjoyment of one of my favourite pursuits.
Shortly after my return from Bridlington, and whilst I was still crippled, another great misfortune befell me. This was the death, on the 5th of August, of my mother, a woman of distinct culture and intellectual power, to whom her children had been indebted for many things in addition to the motherly love which she lavished upon them all so freely. It was, I think, the shock of her death, and the exertion of the railway journey to my brother Stuart's house at Wilmslow, Ches.h.i.+re, which I took in order that I might see her before she died, that brought about a relapse in my condition. In the hope that I should benefit by it, my doctors ordered me a long sea voyage. It was the first I had ever undertaken. I sailed from Liverpool on the _Sidon_, one of the Cunard Company's steamers, for a round trip through the Mediterranean to Constantinople and back. The _Sidon_ was a slow old boat, and we took ten days to reach Malta, the first place of stoppage. I never enjoyed ten days so much before or since. The novelty of life at sea charmed me, whilst the freedom from all work and anxiety was delightful. Every day I seemed to have acquired a fresh stock of vigour, and by the time we reached Malta I could no longer pretend to be an invalid. It was fortunate for me that my health had undergone this wonderful improvement, for we had no sooner cast anchor in the busy harbour of Valetta than a telegram was put into my hands, announcing that my only daughter Nellie had been struck down by typhoid on the very day on which I sailed from England.
There was no opportunity at the moment of getting back from Malta to England direct, and I had consequently to continue my voyage to Syra, Smyrna, and Constantinople, getting telegrams, of course, at each place as to the condition of the invalid. At Constantinople I had an urgent summons from my daughter's medical attendants, and started at an hour's notice for home by the overland route, such as it then was. Leaving Constantinople on a Tuesday at two o'clock by the Austrian Lloyd steamer for Varna, I reached my own house in Yorks.h.i.+re shortly after midnight on the following Sunday. I believe I established on that occasion a record in travelling from the Bosphorus to Leeds. I have described this overland journey in ”Gladys Fane.” It was an experience worth remembering, especially in these days of _trains de luxe_, when the traveller pa.s.ses from Calais to Constantinople without a change of carriage. From Constantinople to Varna I had an exceedingly rough pa.s.sage in the Austrian boat, and at Varna the weather was so bad that it was with difficulty that I persuaded the captain to allow me to land in time to catch the through train. The whole of the following day we were pa.s.sing through the gloomy uplands of Bulgaria. Crossing the Danube at Rustchuk in the evening, we reached Bucharest by nine o'clock at night. Here was the only opportunity I had during my journey of obtaining a night's rest, and I eagerly availed myself of it. Remembering Brofft's extortions on the occasion of my previous visit to Bucharest, I went to a new hotel which had just been opened, one of the advertised attractions of which was its moderate charges.
The next morning, when I was preparing for my early start by train, the proprietor of the hotel came to have a chat with me, and I explained to him the reason why I had chosen his house in preference to Brofft's.
”Quite right, sir!” he exclaimed with great heartiness. ”Everybody says the same thing. Take my word for it, sir, Brofft is a thief.” At that moment my bill was handed to me. It was more extortionate than anything I had known at Brofft's. ”That is as it may be.” I said, turning to the landlord, ”but I think you will agree with me that if Brofft is a thief, he is not the only one in Bucharest.” Things, I hope, have changed since then. If they have not done so I am sorry for the tourist who unwittingly includes Bucharest in the round of the holiday vacation. From Bucharest to London, and thence to Leeds, I came practically without a break, and on reaching my own home once more, in the dead of the night, I had the joy of knowing that the crisis of my daughter's illness was pa.s.sed, and that she was spared to me. Here ends the chronicle of my misfortunes during the year 1880. It is but a trivial tale, and one that, I fear, will have small interest for the reader, but I have ventured to tell it as an ill.u.s.tration of the adage that troubles never come singly. In the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then I have not had to encounter such a series of misfortunes as came upon me in the first nine months of that ill-omened year.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1880.
Mr. Gladstone's Position in 1879--His Decision to Contest Midlothian--How he came to be Adopted by the Leeds Liberals--The Conversation Club--A Visit from John Morley--The Dissolution of 1880--Lecture on Mr.
Gladstone--His Triumphant Return for Leeds--His Election for Midlothian--Mr. Herbert Gladstone Adopted as his Successor at Leeds--Mr.
Gladstone's Visit to Leeds in 1881--A Fiasco Narrowly Avoided--A Wonderful Ma.s.s Meeting--Mr. Gladstone's Collapse and Recovery--My Introduction to Him--An Excursion to Tunis--”The Land of the Bey”--Mr. A.
M. Broadley's Prophecies--Howard Payne's Grave--A Series of Coincidences.
The misfortunes described in the last chapter befell me in 1880; I must now retrace my steps and go back to the year 1879. That year was largely spent in preparations for the General Election. Party spirit ran very high. Lord Beaconsfield retained his great popularity in London and among the cla.s.ses, and the Press and the clubs in consequence believed that the General Election, when it came, would provide him with another victory.
Mr. Gladstone was hated more than ever by the London journalists, and by all who had been attracted by the showy foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield. I am afraid that he was not at this time over popular in the inner circle of his own party. He had resigned the leaders.h.i.+p in 1875, and had ostensibly gone into retirement. He had emerged from that retirement in 1876, in order to be the voice of the nation in its outburst of indignation against the Sultan.
From that time forward he had occupied a curious position. He was neither leader nor follower, but a great force, acting independently of other persons, and disconcerting them visibly by the unexpectedness of his movements.
I had access, years afterwards, to the records of the meetings of the leading members of the Liberal party during the period between 1874 and 1880. It was easy to gather from these secret and confidential memoirs that Mr. Gladstone was found to be an uneasy bedfellow by his old colleagues. When he was moved by any strong impulse he was very apt to forget that Lord Hartington was the nominal leader of the Opposition, and to take some line of action without waiting to consult his ostensible chief. He did, I believe, consult Lord Granville with frequency, if not with regularity. Lord Granville was, in his opinion, the leader of the whole party, whilst the only post held by Lord Hartington was that of leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. The result of his frequent interventions in public affairs was undoubtedly to throw the Opposition into some confusion. The _Times_, and the other chief organs of the London Press, constantly poured ridicule upon his speeches, and did their best to accentuate the differences between himself and his former colleagues. It followed--not unnaturally, perhaps--that there were those among the leaders of the Liberal party who desired to prevent Mr.
Gladstone's return to power. But whilst the great chief was thus a.s.sailed and intrigued against in London, his position in the country was every day becoming stronger.
It was known that he meant to retire from the representation of Greenwich when the Parliament elected in 1874 came to an end. A score of different towns contended for the honour of securing him as the Liberal representative. Leeds, amongst other great const.i.tuencies, sent a deputation to Harley Street, where Mr. Gladstone was living. To all these offers he turned a deaf ear, and to the amazement of everybody it was announced that he had decided to contest Midlothian, at that time represented by Lord Dalkeith, whose father, the Duke of Buccleuch, was the recognised leader of Conservatism in Scotland. Many years afterwards I learned from Mr. Gladstone himself that before accepting the candidature for Midlothian he consulted Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, pointing out to them that if he were to enter into a colossal struggle like that involved in the fight for the great Tory stronghold of Midlothian, instead of accepting one of the safe seats offered to him elsewhere, his position in the party would of necessity be altered. In short, he could only fight Midlothian as a leader. Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, undeterred by this consideration, still pressed him to stand for Midlothian. From the moment he consented to do so Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly regarded himself as the leader in the great campaign upon which the country was about to embark.
In Leeds great efforts were made by the Liberals in preparation for the conflict. My own position in the party was now very different from what it had been in 1874. I had been taken into the innermost circle of the caucus, and now exercised a considerable amount of direct influence over its proceedings. Having formed an intimate friends.h.i.+p with the honorary secretary of the Liberal a.s.sociation, Mr. Mathers, I was consulted upon every step that was taken. It was at my suggestion that Mr.--now Sir James--Kitson was invited to become our president, and I believe I am correct in saying that it was by my arguments that he was induced to accept the office. From the moment when he did so, the organisation of the party in Leeds--where in 1874 we had met with so cruel a disaster--began to advance by leaps and bounds. Kitson was a man of great sagacity and shrewdness, and of much strength of character. Mathers was simply the best organiser and wire-puller I ever met in the course of my life. He was a master of detail, one of those rare men who can retain within their grasp the full knowledge of every fact in the most complicated of problems. He was also, like myself, an enthusiastic Gladstonian. Unkind people in Leeds said in those days that the Liberal party consisted of three persons, Kitson, Mathers, and Reid. This may not have been absolutely correct, but it was certainly not very far from the truth.
On every side we witnessed, during this year 1879, the revival of Liberal feeling, and the rapid growth of a strong hostility to Lord Beaconsfield's adventures in the domain of foreign affairs. The current had turned with a vengeance, and the flowing tide was indeed with us. We three organisers of Leeds Liberalism were determined that at the coming General Election we would win a victory that should fully redeem the character of our town and give it a leading place in the political world.
We were, however, somewhat hampered for want of a good candidate to stand along with Mr. Barran, the sitting member. I had found a thoroughly suitable man who would have been a credit to the const.i.tuency, but there were other candidates in the field, and it seemed as though one of these would be chosen by the Liberal Four Hundred. For the adoption of a candidate was a matter which rested solely with the Four Hundred, and they clung to this prerogative of theirs with great tenacity.
On the eve of the meeting at which they were to make their final selection of a colleague for Mr. Barran, I learned that my fears were well founded, and that the choice was likely to fall upon a gentleman whom I did not regard as suitable. In order to prevent this, I proposed in the _Leeds Mercury_ of the next morning that, in spite of Mr.
Gladstone's acceptance of the candidature for Midlothian, we should make him our candidate at Leeds also. It was true that he had already refused the invitation of the Leeds Liberals, but I pointed out that the fight for Midlothian would notoriously be a severe one, and that it was quite possible that Mr. Gladstone might be defeated. In such a case, if the Liberal a.s.sociation adopted my suggestion, Leeds would secure the high honour of being represented by Mr. Gladstone, whilst, in any event, our adoption of him as a candidate would enable him to conduct the contest in Midlothian without feeling any anxiety as to a possible interruption in his Parliamentary career. To my great delight, the Liberal a.s.sociation not only adopted my suggestion, but did so with enthusiasm. I had consulted n.o.body before making it, but I had the satisfaction of finding that everybody approved of it--everybody, that is to say, except the gentleman who had won over to his own candidature a considerable proportion of the Four Hundred.
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